A new report by Human Rights Watch has accused the AFC, the M23 rebels and the Rwandan army of having committed numerous war crimes in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The findings point to grave abuses carried out in a region that has been gripped by conflict, and they place responsibility on armed actors operating there. The report adds to the long record of documented violations in the volatile east of the country.
According to the rights group, the abuses came in the aftermath of the capture of the city of Goma in January 2025. The fall of Goma marked a turning point in the conflict, and it was in the period that followed that the practices described in the report are said to have taken hold. The events are tied directly to the takeover of the city and what unfolded next.
One of the central findings concerns forced recruitment. Human Rights Watch says that around 1,700 people were loaded onto eleven trucks that left the Unity Stadium and headed north towards Rutshuru. From there, a campaign of forced recruitment began, which the organisation, drawing on some 200 interviews with former detainees, describes as systematic rather than isolated.
The report says that a wide range of people were swept up in this campaign. Soldiers of the Congolese armed forces, police officers, civil servants and ordinary civilians were rounded up in neighbourhoods, hospitals, churches and camps. The breadth of those targeted underlines how indiscriminate the practice is said to have been, reaching far beyond combatants.
The consequences described are severe. Detainees were held at sites including Rumangabo, where the organisation estimates that hundreds of people died during the course of 2025. Witnesses reported the existence of mass graves in Rumangabo, and ground disturbances consistent with such accounts have been detected through satellite imagery, lending weight to the testimonies gathered.
The report does not place blame on one side alone. Human Rights Watch also accused the Congolese government of backing armed groups responsible for serious abuses. It documents support by the Congolese armed forces for the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda and for Wazalendo factions, which are accused of violence, arbitrary detention and extortion against displaced people around Goma.
On the basis of these findings, Human Rights Watch has issued clear demands. It is calling on Kinshasa to cease all material support to these groups, and to open independent investigations targeting all parties to the conflict. The appeal reflects the report's central message that accountability should extend to every actor implicated in the abuses, regardless of which side they are on.